Occupation authorities of the "DNR" are manipulating data on the COVID-19 disease in the uncontrolled territory of Donetsk oblast. This follows from an analysis of reports of calling herself "Minister of Health" Olga Dolgoshapko.

So, she reported in the afternoon of March 31 that more than 130 people "who are under surveillance in the "DNR" as part of measures to prevent the importation and spread of new coronavirus infection" did not show positive results for COVID-19.

"All patients observed in the hospital were sampled on COVID-19. All were negative".

Closer to the night of March 31, information appeared in the separatist segment of social networks that Moscow agreed on the information that there is a coronavirus in the occupied territory and the "minister" would soon voice it.

Indeed, Olga Dolgoshapko reported at 8 p.m. that the first laboratory-confirmed case of COVID-19 was registered in the "DNR".

She specified that the infected arrived from Moscow on March 19 with her husband and little son. Later, on March 24, she felt unwell, and turned to the Ministry of Health hotline on March 29. The patient was called an ambulance, and she was hospitalized in the department of infectious disease.